Andrew Ference on D&C: Bruins take the Bill Belichick approach on trade rumors

Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference joined Dennis & Callahan on Friday morning for his weekly appearance. With their 2-1 shootout win over the Blue Jackets Thursday night, Ference and the Bruins have now won seven straight games, all in the month of November. But the win over Columbus was not as easy — or as pretty — as the other wins have been for Boston. Ference said that’s just all part of the game.

“It definitely wasn’t a pretty thing to watch,” Ference said. “They came to play and it was a weird game, it probably wasn’t the best game to watch. What can you do? Those happen, but come playoff time, we’ll take the points.”

Coming up big for Boston was goaltender Tuukka Rask, who had 30 saves and stopped two of the three attempts in the shootout. Rask was part of trade rumors early in the week, as some have speculated that the Bruins would consider trading him for Blue Jackets high scorer Rick Nash.

The rumors only got more press when Rask appeared to have an angry meltdown in practice on Wednesday when he gave up a goal during a special teams drill and tried to break his stick over the crossbar. But Ference said he doesn’t think the team pays much attention to trade speculation.

“I’m not even really sure who pays attention to that stuff. I know most guys don’t,” Ference said. “I think most guys kind of go to the Bill Belichick, never read anything that goes on. It sounds like a cop out, but I really think guys don’t pay attention to it.”

Ference went on to say that it’s an advantage to have two solid goaltenders in Rask and Tim Thomas.

“[Rask] is great for us. I think it’s awesome to have two goalies that we can have complete confidence in,” Ference said. “From a player’s perspective, you want the best players on your team. Players that you have the greatest chance of winning with. And if I can look back and see two goalies that gives us an unbelievable chance of winning every night, why wouldn’t I want that? I’d be crazy not to.”

On why the Bruins couldn’t really get it going against the Blue Jackets: “It’s a funny thing, it’s just a little off. There is fatigue sometimes where guys are just not feeling as good on a certain night. ‘¦ If there are 15 guys that are feeling great and five that aren’t, it slows everybody down just by having five guys that aren’t quite feeling at their peak. It’s not a fact of everybody feeling awful, it’s just a little bit off here and there and it kind of brings the whole game down.”

On if he and Zdeno Chara have talked about the Montreal police dropping the case against Chara for his March 8 hit on Max Pacioretty: “It hasn’t even come up, and I’m really good friends with Z. We share rides to the rink all the time and we never talk about it. When it happened, obviously we did. But this stuff I think everybody kind of viewed as a bit ridiculous.”

On if the standings matter this early in the season: “It matters for sure, it totally matters. The league is tight, it’s hard to move positions. You wallow for too long down at the bottom and it is just next to impossible to dig yourself out of it. It happened to Calgary last year. I think they, something like they won every single game of their last 20 games and they still didn’t make the playoffs, because you dig that hole. I think at this time of the year, you’re not milling over it every single day, but you’re definitely checking in and knowing where you’re at. But you’re not scoreboard-watching all the time.”